I bet you – and probably everybody else on the planet from age of roughly 7 onwards – have baggage. For many of us, including me, that includes separation or divorce. Some of us will have gone through hell and high water, and the pain, the bitterness and the

Here’s a question: What story are you telling yourself about yourself?

We have stories we tell ourselves about anything and everything – ourselves, other people and life in general. A personal favourite of mine is the ‘helpless’ story. This one is

– or could have been – mine:

“After 37 years, I decided I deserved better and finally left my marriage.

Of course, it was his fault. I had a list of complaints as long as my arm: everything he said or didn’t say; everything he did or didn’t do – that left me feeling resentful, frustrated, angry and hurt.

People I thought were friends walked away. I felt abandoned. I kept talking about my feelings all the time; I just couldn’t help it. It all seemed so unfair.”

I’ve recently had the privilege of being interviewed by Woman’s Hour, The Daily Mail and The Telegraph.

It is impossible, in the brief time, to cover more than the absolute minimum. But it left me wishing we’d had more time and print space to examine the things that, in my opinion, are really important: how did I get from feeling as if I were invisible in my marriage to today, where, now well into my sixties, I’m continually attracting loving and supportive relationships, and working as the Life Enhancing Coach which is deeply rewarding.

I’ve come across some clients who comment that they don’t really trust their own judgement because they have made so many poor choices in the past.

These comments got me thinking about what it really means to trust.

My first reaction is that these clients have got one thing right, namely that it’s about trusting (or not trusting) themselves. That’s certainly more than I can say about myself in the early days. I tended to hand over decisions about what was best for me to just about everybody else. I trusted their judgement more than I trusted my own.

I’ve always been fascinated by people who are clearly self-confident. How do you know when you meet a genuinely confident person? What do you believe they’re like when no-one is looking? I’ve come across a number of beliefs – or perhaps I should say ‘myths’ – that people hold about those they believe to be confident which used to include me:

They tend to take people at face value and they, therefore, also tend to believe that confident people have got it ‘all together’, that they don’t experience the fears and doubts that we all, on occasion, suffer from.

This is far from the truth. Yet, there are a number of things that make self-confident people different: